Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you all have enjoyed your holiday season thus far... and are getting excited for the last hurrah: New Year's Eve. I, for one, am pumped because Sis-T and I are throwing our annual NYE bash at our parents' house (aaand, I'm 28 years old and still throwing parties at my parents' house. nbd).

Speaking of holiday parties, one thing that I think we all get a little too much of during this time of the year is schmoozing. For me, the worst schmooze-night of the entire year is my parents' Holiday Open House. For hours on end, my siblings and I are trapped making small talk with a bunch of people we vaguely know/care about. We smile, nod, tell stories of school/work/etc. Overall, I'd say we're pretty charming (See, mom! You're lucky to have such charming children who entertain your guests).

This year, amidst the schmoozing/charming, something pretty fantastic happened: Sis-E struck up a conversation with someone she thought was a somewhat distant relative. This conversation wasn't run-of-the-mill small talk; this small talk was aggressive. Like, "Are you ready to be a grandpa" and "We're so proud that your son has gotten his act together" aggressive. I'm happy to say, Sis-T and I observed the whole thing, entirely confused as to how Sis-E knew this guy so well (we didn't recognize him at all).

Honestly, I'm not even sure how it happened, but the conversation lasted for a solid 5-10 minutes. At which point, Sis-E leaned over to me and Sis-T and asked, "that's our relative, right?" Sis-T and I looked at each other, laughed, and shook our heads "No!!"

"OMG," Sis-E responded, "This is so embarrassing, I've got to get out of here now!" She darted to the other end of the room and quickly started up a conversation with some people she definitely knew.

Oh! Poor Sis-E! What an embarrassing mistake! But it's the holidays, and these types of mix-ups happen all the time at parties.

I wish I could say that's the end of this story, but it gets better. Later in the evening, our mom was talking to the same man (it turns out they went to high school together) and he commented on how he was super worried about his seventeen year-old son. Apparently, some drama had recently gone down on his son's facebook wall regarding a pregnancy and he had just talked to my sister who confirmed the whole thing!! Now, he has to worry about all the other stuff she had mentioned, as well! The poor man was so distraught that he and his wife left the party soon after.

It wasn't until later in the evening when our entire family was recapping highlights of the party that both sides of the story were revealed (and for those of you who are worried about the son, my mom emailed his father right away to assure him that it was all a mix-up and that his son has not knocked a girl up or is partying too hard). Best party-foul EVER!

Let this be a lesson to you all: before schmoozing too hard at a party, make sure you know exactly who it is you're talking to.